There are a number of hand wands on the market today used to provide means for visually signaling others. Visual signaling may be desirable in a wide variety of situations, including traffic direction when parking vehicles, for safety and emergency personal to control traffic flow during periods of abnormally heavy roadway use or at the scene of an accident or in other hazardous or dangerous circumstances, to guide aircraft on the ground to gates, hangers or runways, or when signaling crowds or persons or vehicles at large events. It may be desirable in a number of other such circumstances to have a means for signaling others with visual stimulation that is readily perceived by the persons being signaled.
There are devices known in the art, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. D 449,011 to Kuvlesky that provide useful features for hand wands. However, these and other prior art devices rely on reflecting light back toward a visual signaling target. Such methods, while useful, may not be readily perceived by the intended targets of the signal and do not employ any self generating light sources.
Some devices currently in use employ the use of a small number of LED light sources of low intensity that are more visible to others during the nighttime than the daytime, being ineffective during the day. Poor perception of current devices by the targets of visual signaling present serious safety issues to safety and emergency workers, as well as other visual signaling subjects. For example, in circumstances involving traffic direction of vehicles traveling on a roadway, poor perception of visual signals by drivers results in less time for the drivers to react to the visual signals. Because of the dangers often associated with situations in which visual signaling is important, there exists a continual need in the art for means of providing a greater distance for visual signaling targets to react to the signals.
In less hazardous situations, users of visual signaling devices also often desire to pair the task of visual signaling with other functions. For instance, police officers directing traffic at checkpoints may desire from time to time to illuminate specific areas. Flashlights may be used, for example, to search the interior of a vehicle during nighttime, or to read documents. In other situations, additional light sources may be needed, such as when changing a tire. These types of multifunction circumstances requires the user of current visual signaling devices to carry one or more devices in addition to the visual signaling device to perform all desired functions. Doing so is cumbersome and inefficient. Therefore, there exists a current need for a visual signaling device with inherent abilities in addition to providing visual signaling.
Additionally, other devices currently available provide only one direction of light, or may provide light emission around the entire perimeter of the device. Both configurations create, respectively, less visibility of the visual signaling device, and impair the vision of the user by directing light unnecessarily toward the user.
Therefore, there exists an unmet need in the prior art for a device that provides solutions to the aforementioned problems.